Cable construction



w T. WELLS CABLE CONSTRUCTION Filed Dec. 20, 1932 Patented Nov. 24, 1936 PATENT -`oFFlcE CABLE CONSTRUCTION Walter T. Wells, Glendale, Calif., assgnor to The Technicraft Engineering Corporation, Los Angeles, Calif., a corporation of California Application December 20, 1932, Serial No. 648,037

1 Claim.

The present invention is an improved cable construction and relates more particularly to a type of cable designed to carry an electrical conductor, imbedded within an insulative covering, to great 5 depths, as, for instance, in deep wells.

When put to such use, a cable is subjected to several severe tests, unusual to ordinary uses for which cables are made.

In most conventional uses, a cable is often placed under heavy strain throughout relatively short intervals of its length but is seldom, if ever, placed under a strain where it must support, while suspended from one end, several thousand feet of its own length, and in addition a heavy tool at- 5 tached thereto.

The structure hereinafter described is designed primarily to meet this and other unusual conditions which are encountered in oil well operations, where twisted strands of wire on the outer surface of the cable exert a constrictionalforce on the inner laminae, such as waterproofing, insulation and the like, and where such force is greatly auggented by hydrostatic pressure in a well or cas- It is a well known fact that any suspended member, even tubing and drill pipe, stretches very materially from end vto endy when lowered to great depths in a well.

'I'he torsional pressure of the outer strands of` cable becomes so great under these conditions that peripheral friction between the enclosed laminae prevents each layer of material from moving longitudinally to compensate for the stretch.

The primary object of my invention is to provide a means for protecting the fabricated members inside the cable from external pressure, whereby each lamination will be free to elongate, proportionately to the other members, and to accommodate itself to great tension and to relative movement of adjacent members in passing over sheaves and reels.

Another object is the provision of a novel method of embedding the electrical conductor element of the cable whereby said conductor can. under all conditions, be stretched as much or more than the other cable members, f

It is obvious that, should the conductor be severed, the entire cable becomesworthless for the WIPO@ for whichit is intended. Ii' either the conductor or its protective covering is parted, both being embedded beneath the outer strands koi! the cable, there is no way of locating thelnjqry and the entirecable is worthle.. f'

In the accompanying drawing ligure 1 is a side elevation oi a fragment of my improved cable, wherein the component parts are successively broken away for the purpose of better illustration, and the insulative member shown in longitudinal central cross section, and Figure 2, is a transverse section of Figure l taken on the line II-II of said iigure.

Referring to the drawing the numeral l indicates the strands of an electric conductor', here shown as seven in number. l0

Said strands are twisted in the usual manner, and the twisted cable so iorm'ed is subsequently treated, as in forming rolls to re-form it to shorten its normal length so that it can be stretched longitudinally, when embeddedin an l5 insulative material 2 of rubber or suitable re- I embedded therein, is wrapped helicallyy with 30 v varnished cambric 3 the strip being overlapped upon itself one half its Width as indicated by the ,dotted line 4, Figure 1.

When so wrapped the cable is covered by a woven tubular fabric 6, over which is applied 35 another similarly woven tube 1.

The structure so built up is then armored by a helical wire coil 8, which is formed on the-braided insulation and so wound that each coil normally contacts the adjacent coils. 40

This armor flexes readily as the cable is reeved'through sheaves and wound and unwound on a reel and protects the laminae it encloses from constriction by outside strands 9 of they finished cable. r

Each of said strands is composed of nineteen (19) substrands 9 4.

'Ihe helical armor 8, flexible in all directions, provides a metal-to-metal contact with strands l,

'and the coils ol!v said armor cross said strands in substantially perpendicular relation thereto, con- .'stituting a flexible conduit.

When strands 9 are under end-to-end stress, the constricting force of said strands, as they 5,5

seek to straighten, is applied at equidistant points on the periphery of armor 8.

Being circular in form, said armor resists compression and protects the inner iaminations from external pressure.

A hoisting and haulage cable comprising a multi-stranded spirally wound and coiled conductor, a laye'r of yieldable insulating material surrounding the same, a tubular woven fabric covering for the insulating material. a helically wound armor surrounding the fabric, and a stranded wire weight supporting sheath surrounding the armor and spirally wound in the same direction as the conductor, said weight supporting sheath occupying at least one-half the total diameter of the completed cable.-

WALTER T. WELLS. 

